FORKS — Charlotte Wedrick is diving into a new location for her business, Health First Fitness Center.
Wedrick and the Quillayute Valley Park and Recreation District are in the last weeks of penning an agreement for a public-private partnership to house her fitness center at the Forks Aquatics Center — where there are plans to reopen long-shuttered lap lanes.
If all goes well with renovations, the new facility could be open as early as August or September.
The pool was closed in 2007 after citizens voted down a measure to create a metropolitan park district to fund the operations of the pool after also voting down a tax levy to run the pool in 2006.
The pool was opened in 2005 after voters approved a $2.9 million bond issue in 2000 to build the facility at 91 Maple Ave.
It was constructed with lap pools and a water park area and was intended to be a multiuse fitness facility.
Retrofitting
So that she can relocate from her current site at 711 S. Forks Ave., Wedrick said, the Quillayute Valley Park and Recreation District will have the aquatic center building retrofitted.
The recreational pool area will be filled in and walls built to enclose a separate area for the fitness portion; the lap lanes will be reopened.
The project will be put out to bid in mid-February, said Nedra Reed, chairwoman of the Quillayute Valley Parks and Recreation District.
Reed said all the renovations will be done so they are reversible — in case the community at some point decides to vote a levy to run the pool.
“We have the capital funds available for the retrofit,” she said.
“That was remaining after the original construction of the pool, but the fund is designated that it cannot be used for operational expenses. It can only be used for capital projects.”
Until the bids are returned sometime in March, the cost of the project is unknown.
The details of the partnership with Wedrick are still being worked out and reviewed by the district’s attorney, Craig Miller.
“Creating a private-public partnership is more difficult than you would imagine,” Reed said.
Wedrick has big plans for the location.
She and her business partner, Renee Renninger started the fitness business eight years ago.
Renninger has moved to the Columbia River Gorge area, and Wedrick is moving forward with the expansions long dreamed about.
Wedrick envisions a business that is a complementary health facility.
“Really, besides the fitness center and the opportunity to have the lap lanes open, my medium-term goal is to provide programs for everyone within the community,” she said.
“From the basics of providing swimming lessons — which we have been unable to follow through with since the pool closed — to having a nutritionist or a registered dietitian and a physical therapy program.”
She also envisions having lessons in healthy cooking and in nutritional values.
“Some of our young people aren’t even learning how to cook,” she said. “Some of them have no idea what a nutritional value is.”
She said she would like to eventually create partnerships with other professionals.
“I would like to have a counselor on board for people who need that,” she said. “Some people I can help out with their basic fitness needs, but other individuals have a deeper type of emotional state of mind that might take more help to make some change.
“My goal has always been committed to help people make the best out of life and to see it as very precious and valuable.
“This [expansion] has taken on such a deeper personal meaning for me because it has been what I wanted to do my whole life.”
Immediate focus
Wedrick said that for now, she would focus on the expansion as having more room and opening up the lap lanes in the pool, as well as possibly the hot tub.
The reopening of the lap lanes will allow swim lessons and water physical therapy to take place.
“Renee really taught me a lot, and one of those things was to be careful not to expand too quickly,” Wedrick said.
“I could probably maintain what I have now at this facility, but in order to expand I really need more space.”
Reed said the district is ready for a situation that will allow at least some swim facilities to be open.
“We are so excited to work with [Wedrick],” she said. “She is so invested in the community and is just such an avid believer in what she does. She has already done an awful lot for the community.”
‘Biggest Loser’ program
Wedricks’ “Biggest Loser” program — now in its fifth cycle — has helped dozens of people lose weight.
She now teaches nine classes in a five-day period and has circuit-training posters plastered all over the walls of the tiny building.
“Right now, I have to move all the equipment to have my classes and then I have to move it all back,” she said.
“It will be great to have a facility that I won’t have to do that — that people can actually use the equipment while I’m teaching a class.”
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Reporter Paige Dickerson can be reached at 360-417-3535 or at paige.dickerson@peninsuladailynews.com.
